Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Pancetta and Prosciutto. Both are Italian Hams. Is There a Difference??

The ANNOTICO Report

PROSCIUTTO, PANCETTA, ITALY'S HAM, BACON: Ask Food Network:

Rocky Mountain NewsBy Food Network KitchensMay 25, 2005

Question: What is the difference between pancetta and
prosciutto? I knowthey both are Italian hams, but are they interchangeable
in recipes? -Stephanie Reed, Smyrna, Del.

Answer: There's no harm in substituting pancetta and prosciutto
for eachother. But as you're probably aware, prosciutto does
come at a dear price,and cooking with the best of it (prosciutto di Parma)
seems a needlessextravagance unless specified in a recipe. If you do
substitute, take notethat prosciutto is considerably saltier than pancetta
and adjustaccordingly.

The difference between prosciutto and pancetta is the
difference betweenham and bacon, albeit ham and bacon of a particularly
exalted variety.

Prosciutto, it's true, is Italian ham. In fact, prosciutto
is the Italianword for ham. And like all ham, it's simply the rear
leg of the pig, cured.

The prosciutto that most Americans associate with the
word is more properlyreferred to as prosciutto crudo, or raw ham.

Though prosciutto crudo is made all over Italy, the best
of it comes fromEmilia-Romagna, in north-central Italy, near Parma. There
prosciutto isdry-cured with salt anywhere from 10 months to two years,
using speciallyraised hogs.

Its production is an elaborate and strictly controlled
art, designed toproduce ham with a minimum of salt in a bid to preserve
the naturalsweetness of the pork. The result is one of Italy's great
contributions togastronomy.

Lynn Rossetto Kasper puts it best when she describes the
taste as being"like someone infused the flavors of nuts, cream, ripe
fruit and meatessence into a ham."

Such a glorious product should be treated with respect,
sliced paper-thinand tampered with as little as possible. Prosciutto dries
out and goes badquickly. Be sure to use it within two days of purchase.

Simply put, pancetta is bacon-cured pork belly. But bacon
of a differentsort. Unlike American bacon, pancetta is unsmoked, and
though it's crudo,pancetta undergoes a special curing process that renders
it safe to eatraw, so it can be treated like ham.

Pancetta is everyday food in Italy. It turns up raw in
sandwiches, onplates of antipasti and cooked in just about everything
else: pasta sauces,beans, soups. There's no limit to what it can do.

Do be aware, though, that if you go looking for Italian
pancetta in theU.S., you're going to come up empty. Its importation
is banned; allpancetta sold here is domestically produced. Fortunately,
much of it isterrific.